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CORDS (Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support) was a pacification program of the governments of South Vietnam and the United States during the Vietnam War. The program was created on 9 May 1967, and included military and civilian components of both governments. The objective of CORDS was to gain support for the government of South Vietnam from its rural population which was largely under the influence or controlled by the insurgent communist forces of the Viet Cong and the People's Army of Vietnam (North Vietnamese Army). Unlike earlier pacification programs in Vietnam, CORDS is seen by many authorities as a "successful integration of civilian and military efforts" to combat the insurgency. By 1970, 93 percent of the rural population of South Vietnam was believed by the United States to be living in "relatively secure" villages. CORDS had been extended to all 44 provinces of South Vietnam, and the communist insurgency was much reduced.〔White, Jeremy Patrick "Civil Affairs in Vietnam" Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC., pp 10-11 http://csis.org/files/media/csis/pubs/090130_vietnam_study.pdf, accessed 18 May 2014; Lipsman, Samuel and Doyle, Edward ''The Vietnam Experience: Fighting for Time'' Boston: Boston Publishing Company, 1983, pp. 74-76〕 Critics, however, have described the pacification programs and CORDS in terms such as "the illusion of progress".〔Fisher, Christopher, "The Illusion of Progress" ''Pacific Historic Review'', Vol 75, No. 1 (Feb 2006), pp. 25-55〕 CORDS was, in the estimation of its first leader, Robert W. Komer, "too little, too late."〔"Coffey, Maj. Ross "Revisiting Cords: The Need for Unity of Effort to Secure Victory in Iraq" ''Military Review'', March-April 2006, p. 16〕 With the withdrawal of U.S. military forces and many civilian personnel, CORDS was abolished in February 1973. CORD's temporary successes were eroded in the 1970s, as the war became primarily a struggle between the conventional military forces of South and North Vietnam rather than an insurgency. North Vietnam prevailed in 1975. ==South Vietnamese attempts at pacification== The continuing struggle during the Vietnam War to gain the support of the rural population for the government of South Vietnam was called pacification. To Americans, pacification programs were often referred to by the phrase winning hearts and minds. The anti-communist Ngo Dinh Diem government of South Vietnam (1955-1963) had its power base among the urban and Catholic population. The government controlled the cities and large towns but Diem's efforts to extend government power to the villages, where most of the population lived, were mostly unsuccessful. The Viet Cong were gaining support and mobilizing the peasantry to oppose the government. Between 1956 and 1960, the Viet Cong instituted a land reform program dispossessing landlords and distributing land to farmers.〔Hunt, Richard A. ''Pacification: The American Struggle for Vietnam's Hearts and Minds'' Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995, pp. 11-15〕 In 1959, Diem revived the agroville program of the French era with the objective of moving peasants into new agricultural settlements which contained schools, medical clinics, and other facilities supported by the government. The program failed due to peasant resistance, poor management, and disruption by the Viet Cong using guerrilla and terrorist tactics. In 1961, the government embarked on the Strategic Hamlet Program, designed partly by Robert Thompson, a British counter-insurgency expert. The idea was to move rural dwellers into fortified villages in which they would participate in self-defense forces for their protection and isolation from the guerrillas. The American Ambassador to South Vietnam Frederick Nolting and CIA official William Colby supported the program. General Lionel C. McGarr, chief of the military assistance program in South Vietnam, opposed it, favoring instead a mobile, professional South Vietnamese army undertaking what would later be called Search and Destroy missions rather than defending villages and territory.〔Ahern, Thomas, ''Vietnam Declassified: The CIA and the Counterinsurgency'' Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 2009, pp. 77-78〕 The program was implemented far too rapidly and coercively, and by 1964, many of the 2,600 strategic hamlets had fallen under Viet Cong control.〔Hunt, pp. 22-23〕 The next iteration of the pacification program came in 1964 with, for the first time, the direct participation in planning by the American Embassy and MAC/V, the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam. The ''Chien Thang'' (Struggle for Victory) pacification program was less ambitious than the Strategic Hamlet program, envisioning a gradual expansion, like an "oil spot" from government-controlled to communist controlled areas, by providing security and services to rural areas. Along with the Chien Thang program was the related Hop Tac (Victory) program, directly involving the U.S. military in pacification for the first time. Hop Tac envisioned a gradual expansion outward from Saigon of areas under South Vietnamese government control. These programs also failed as the South Vietnamese army was unable to provide adequate security and safety to rural residents in disputed areas.〔Hunt, pp. 25-30〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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